


Bump in the Night

by 1lostone, skarlatha



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Also Carl is a Puppy, Crazy Rumors, Cute Kids, Daryl is a badass, Gen, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Kid Fic, Who Won't Stay in the House
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 06:45:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5118986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1lostone/pseuds/1lostone, https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/pseuds/skarlatha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick Grimes is not a coward. So when Alexandria Elementary's biggest bully, Phillip Blake, <i>triple-dog dares</i> Rick to steal a souvenir from super-scary Old Man Greene's house on Halloween night, there's no way Rick is going to let that slide. So with the help of Carol, Glenn, and Rick's bestest friend Daryl, they concoct a scheme to meet Phillip's dare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bump in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> This was co-written by Skari and Lost as part of the Rickyl Writer's Group Halloween Challenge! We traded off every thousand words or so... so this truly is a co-written fic! 
> 
> We hope you enjoy our little Halloween "trick"!

**_Krrrrsssshhh. Krrrrrrrrrrrrrshhhh_**

“Daryl? Daryl... are you there?” Rick pressed the walkie-talkie button and waited a few seconds for answering static. When none came, he frowned down at the small Batman walkie-talkie. His parents had given them to him on his sixth birthday, and he had immediately opened the package and given one to his best friend, Daryl Dixon, right there at the birthday party.

They weren’t real walkie-talkies, not like on _The A-Team_ , but they worked really well--as long as Daryl was in his bedroom (which faced Rick’s across the little alley between their two houses) or in the front part of his living room. Anything else was too far to pick up. Rick called most nights--thirty minutes after bedtime. Except that one time he was sick with the flu. He couldn’t have talked if he wanted to. The standing rule was that Daryl would pick up as soon as he could. Sometimes, though, Daryl didn’t get to pick up right away. On those nights, Rick knew it was better to not bug him, ‘cuz he didn’t want Daryl to get in trouble.

In the three years since then, they had gone through probably billions of batteries. They’d talk at night, Rick in his bed under the covers, whispering so his parents wouldn’t hear, and Daryl across the way, curled up on the top bunk of the bedroom he shared with Merle, Daryl’s older brother. 

Merle was kind of a jerkface, but he never seemed to mind it when Daryl and Rick talked about everything from Pokemon to the Braves, so Rick _guessed_ he was okay. 

For an older brother. 

Rick heard a scritch-scratch at his closed bedroom door, and smiled. 

“Carl!” 

Earlier, Rick’s mom had had to take poor Carl to the vet. Carl was only three months old, and was the cutest golden retriever ever. It was Rick’s job to take care of him, and Rick took his job very seriously, but Carl still had to go to the vet for an overnight stay, something about getting him “fixed” that Rick didn’t quite understand but that his mom insisted on. Carl barked twice at the door, and Rick jumped down off of the window seat to go let him into Rick’s room. Sometimes, Carl would steal Rick’s Lil’ Sheriff's hat, and play with it so hard that once he passed out, it looked like he was wearing it. 

Carl always slept at his bed, like any ferocious guard-dog should. Carl had a blue collar, and Rick loved him very much. 

Even if Carl would never stay in the house.

 ** _Krrrrsssshhh. Krrrrrrrrrrrrrshhhh_**

“Rick? Come in. This is Daryl. You there?” 

Oh! That’s right! Rick jumped back up onto his bed, and dove for the Batman walkie-talkie. “I’m here. Did it work? Is everything okay?”

There was a silence, then Daryl’s voice came quietly over the speaker. “Yeah. We’re all set. Merle’s gonna cover for me, but he says we owe him one.” 

Rick frowned. He knew Merle would collect, too. Probably something stupid again, like stealing more cigarettes from the Piggly Wiggly. 

Still, Rick couldn’t help the excited wiggle at the way their plan was coming together. 

“Okay so... we’ll meet for trick-or-treating, with everyone, and then we can give Eugene the slip. Merle is gonna distract him, and we can go up to the old Greene place.” 

Daryl whistled, the sound echoing sharply over the puny walkie-talkie speaker. “I can’t believe we’re gonna do this, Rick. No one’s gonna believe it.” 

“Course they will. Carol’s gonna borrow her mom’s video camera. That butthead, Phillip, is gonna have real, live, video evidence that we not only went up there, but went up there _when it was dark._. And a _full moon_.”

Rick heard the muted sound of talking, and what sounded faintly like Daryl’s dad hollering. Daryl’s dad was kind of a jerkface too, but fortunately he was out of town a lot. Usually, that meant that Daryl had to go super-quick, and tonight was no different. 

“Crap. Gotta go. See ya tomorrow for trick or treating.”

Rick grinned in the darkness. “Yeah. Night!” 

There were few things more exciting in any nine-year old’s life than being allowed to go trick-or-treating with your best friends. With very little adult supervision. 

It was gonna be _awesome_!

******

Phillip was the biggest bully in all of Alexandria. He and his best friends Milton and Martinez pretty much ran Alexandria Elementary school. Milton was kind of shy, and was responsible for making sure that all the homework got done. Martinez was a bulldog, ready to start a fight at a drop of a hat, but Phillip? That kid was, as Carol often said, a few slim jims short of a picnic. Merle sometimes hung out with them, when he could be bothered, but usually found his own trouble to get into. Last week at the pencil sharpener, Michonne and Phillip had gotten into a pretty bad fight. Michonne didn’t have a scratch, and she made Philip cry _and_ had somehow managed to scratch the older boy’s eyelid with her unsharpened pencil. He’d taken to wearing an eyepatch around the school, which Rick thought just looked dumb. 

After this, he had triple-dog dared Rick and his friends to go to the old Greene place. 

_Nobody_ went to the Old Greene Place. 

The ancient house looked like a breeding ground for both ghosts and serial killers. The grass in the yard was at least waist-high, and the rusty gate hung to its post by only one hinge. It made a terrifying screeching sound whenever it was opened. (Not that Rick had ever been there before to hear it, but Merle had said so.) Old Man Greene was an axe murderer, or a crazy farmer, or an escapee from an insane asylum. Rumor had it that he even kept his victims locked up in his barn! No one had seen or heard from him in at least twenty years, but every once every month on the full moon (this was also confirmed with a pinky swear by Merle), you could see him moving around on the widow’s walk that hung over the front door. He was either nine or eleven feet tall, and had bushy white hair. One of his legs had been shot clean off by the Alexandria police department, thirty years ago, but that didn’t matter much on account of the fact that Rick had it on good authority (and not even Merle’s this time, but on _Carol’s_ authority, and everybody knew that Carol wouldn’t lie about anything) that Old Man Greene could _fly_.

Carol said she’d seen him flying once, just levitating off the widow’s walk on a full moon night like a scary ghost except not see-through, and Rick believed her. There were other theories, like that he turned into a bat in order to fly, but Rick had talked this over with Daryl at length and the two boys had decided, with at least 70% certainty, that the bat theory was just silly.

Besides, all they had to do to meet the terms of the triple-dog dare and prove themselves to be the bravest most fearless kids ever to attend Alexandria Elementary was to go inside the run-down house and take a souvenir—something that could be proven to belong to Old Man Greene. So they had a plan. Glenn could run the fastest so he would go knock on the back door of the house to draw the old man away from the front porch and then run away. Meanwhile, Rick would dart inside the foyer through the front door and grab whatever was closest while Daryl kept watch of the widow’s walk to make sure the coast was clear. And Carol would video the whole thing so that Phillip couldn’t claim that they were lying about their daring feat.

After all… Halloween this year was going to be a full moon. The _most dangerous time_ to go to the Old Greene Place. But Daryl was the bravest kid Rick had ever met and Rick _really_ hated being called a scaredy-cat and while he might have turned down a regular dare, well… no self-respecting fourth-grader would let something like a _triple-dog_ dare go. And anyway, something this crazy would make Rick a legend in the elementary circuit, and plus, Daryl wanted to do it. So they would.

And hopefully, with some luck, they wouldn’t even get axe murdered!

******

“…and I am certain that your parents would vastly prefer it if you held yourselves back from eating the candy you collect because I am sure they will want to check it for razor blades and hypodermic needles, despite the fact that it’s been proven on a multitude of occasions that this is, in fact, nothing more than an urban legend.” Eugene looked around at the gaggle of kids and smoothed out his lab coat with the hand that wasn’t holding a beaker full of glowing green liquid. “The route we will be taking is pre-planned and I for sure expect your full cooperation in sticking to the path I will be leading you on…”

Rick rolled his eyes and then spat on the very corner of his sleeve so that he could properly shine the little silver badge that designated him an official sheriff’s deputy. He’d stolen-- _borrowed_ , Daryl had insisted, on account of the fact that Rick was gonna give it back after Halloween—he’d _borrowed_ the badge from his grandfather to replace the crappy plastic one that had come with the policeman’s uniform costume his mom had bought for him, and according to Merle, the fact that he was wearing a real badge meant that he was a real cop. It was a lot of responsibility for a nine-year-old, but Rick felt very much up to the challenge.

He looked around at his friends and their costumes—Michonne was a samurai, with a long shiny sword that she’d already whapped Shane with a few times because he wouldn’t stop complaining about how unfair it was that he’d had to dress up as Cinderella just because he’d been dumb enough to bet that he could beat Daryl in a spitball-shooting contest. (Nobody beat Daryl Dixon at spitball-shooting. _Nobody_. Shane knew this now.) Carol was dressed as the Cookie Monster for the third year in a row, and she would straight-up punch anybody who had anything to say about it. (Rick already had a bruise on his arm from making this mistake just five minutes earlier.) And Tara had her hair teased up and bushy, wearing robes and carrying a wand, and was refusing to answer to anything but “Hermione” for the duration of the night.

And then there was the great costume debacle. The whole gang had talked about their costumes and everybody had wanted to be a zombie, so they had set up an elimination bracket system and rock-paper-scissored for it until Shane had come out victorious.

“It’s dumb to call it a zombie. Everybody calls it that. I’m gonna call myself a _Walker_ ,” Shane had said, looking very smug about how smart he was. And so everybody else had picked a new costume. Glenn was going to be an astronaut, Maggie was going as Spiderman, and Merle hadn’t quite decided whether he was going to be Dracula or Jack Sparrow but either way, Walkers were off the table. But then, Shane had lost his bet, and suddenly no one was going as a Walker. And so, apparently, everyone had thought the costume was fair game.

“Glenn, you dumb butt, I told you _I_ was gonna be a Walker,” Maggie was saying, giving Glenn a light shove. “You gotta go home and change.”

Glenn frowned and readjusted his ‘bloody’ shirt. “We can both be Walkers. Stop pushing me.”

“We can’t both be Walkers, that’s not fair,” Maggie said. “Eugene, tell him it’s not fair.”

Eugene opened his mouth to argue, but Merle talked over him. “Both’a y’all need to go change because _I’m_ a Walker an’ I’m the oldest.”

Maggie stuck her tongue out at Merle and then shoved Glenn again. “Go home and change, Glenn Rhee.”

“Eugene, tell her to stop hitting me,” Glenn whined.

“I’m not hitting you,” Maggie retorted. “I’m pushing you. _This_ is hitting you.”

To his credit, Eugene did manage to catch Maggie’s wrist when she pulled back her fist, thus stopping the violence. For the moment, at least.

Rick sighed and turned his attention away from the scuffle. Daryl should be here any minute and then they could put the plan in motion. Just a quick maneuver to lose Eugene and then they could all run to the Old Greene Place and Phillip the bully wouldn’t be able to say _nothin’_ about them from now on. 

“Now, I don’t believe that is any way to treat a lady, Mister Rhee.” 

Rick fought against rolling his eyes again. Eugene wasn’t much of an adult, supervision-wise, but he was a freshman in high school, so that made him the eldest. He also talked weird, but Rick supposed that’s just how smart guys talked. 

“Maggie’s not a lady. She’s just a dumb _girl_.”

Both Rick and Eugene prudently moved out of the way of Maggie’s wrath, then promptly ignored it when she tackled Glenn so hard that his baseball hat flew off of his head. 

They were interrupted mid-punch by the sound of a vehicle. 

It wasn’t a car, and it wasn’t the _clack-clack-clack_ of the playing cards Daryl had super-glued onto the spokes of his bike. 

Instead it was the most beautiful thing Rick had ever seen. Daryl was seated on a [motorcycle](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513kAmVQC6L._SX425_.jpg). It was black, and looked like Daryl’s dad’s. There was even fire on it, which was so cool that Rick had a moment of jealousy. It wasn’t one of the baby ones that Maggie’s sister had, and it wasn’t one of the grown up ones that looked more like a dangerous weapon. This was... just cool. 

“You’re sure you wanna use that?” Merle raised an eyebrow at his younger brother. “Thing is just about ready for the junk heap.” 

Daryl shook his head and revved up the motor. “Naw. I’m fine.”

Carol cocked her head and stared at Daryl up and down. “What’s your costume? That doesn’t look like a ghost.” She narrowed her blue eyes suspiciously. 

Rick managed to rip his gaze away from the bike to actually see what he was wearing for trick-or-treating. Daryl was wearing cargo pants that had one of the front pockets ripped out. Rick could see a small, red bandana hanging from his back pocket. Daryl had ripped out the sleeves of his t-shirt, and over it wore a jean vest that had white angel wings painted carefully on the back. 

Slung over his back was a plastic crossbow. 

It was the coolest darn costume that Rick had ever seen. 

“Yeah. What _are_ you, Daryl?” Glenn chimed in, picking idly at some of the rotting walker skin hanging from his arm. 

Daryl slid the black sunglasses down onto his nose, looking slowly around at Rick and all of his friends before pushing them back up. 

“Imma badass.” 

The _of course_ wasn’t vocalized, but Rick was pretty sure they all heard it anyway. 

Eugene, from his lofty position as the eldest, checked his watch, then checked his backup watch and cleared his throat. “If we split up and take Market, we will be able to reconvene at the cul-de-sac and cross-cover the other side of the street. According to my, no doubt, stellar mathematical calculations, and factoring in wind resistance from costume usage and cuteness factors of any trick-or-treaters ahead of us, we will be able to cover the entire street in twenty-four-point-three minutes. As I am fond of the particular crispity-crunchety-peanut-buttery goodness of Butterfingers, I suggest we hop to it.”

Rick carefully didn’t meet Daryl’s gaze. Eugene was doing half of their job for them. It was easy enough to split up so that Tara, Michonne, Shane, and Merle, their ‘distraction’ crew, could easily keep Eugene’s attention, while he, Daryl, Glenn, Maggie and Carol took the other side of the street. 

“What’s the signal?” Rick hissed at Daryl, who shrugged. 

“Merle said it’d be obvious,” Daryl whispered back. Carol rang the first doorbell, and her cookie monster costume was quite a hit, if the amount of candy she was given was anything to go by. 

House to house, yard to yard, they worked their way down Market, purposefully hanging back so that they could take off when Merle gave the signal. It was too bad that they couldn’t include Eugene in their plans, but there was something about him that Rick didn’t quite trust. And Phillip wasn’t going to wait for forever. Rick knew he and his group of friends had to get the evidence to him sooner rather than later, or Rick’s supposed cowardice would be all over the school. 

“Yeah, you heard me! I said it, and I meant it, Merle Dixon. You’re so dumb that... that... they haven’t even invented a name for how dumb you are!” Michonne’s voice rang out across Market, cutting through the laughter and giggles of the kids who were trick or treating like a hot knife through butter. Rick completely forgot for a second that Merle had planned all of this, and stared at his friend in shock. Michonne wasn’t loud. Not even a tiny bit. When she spoke though, Rick knew that people listened. 

Mostly ‘cuz they valued their lives. 

Merle had let her drag him down to the ground, and he was almost grinning a little as Michonne pounded him in the gut. Michonne never pulled her punches, so Rick knew that it had to have hurt like the dickens.

“Rick! _Now_!” 

Oh crap!

Rick had been so busy watching the fight that he hadn’t noticed that Daryl, Carol and Glenn were ready to take off. Daryl yanked him onto the back of the bike and they zoomed off at a daredevil seven miles per hour, Glenn and Carol following on their bikes. 

Rick _almost_ felt bad that Eugene didn’t even notice their frantic scurry towards Water Avenue and the Old Greene Place. The ride there was louder that Rick had anticipated, but he kind of liked riding behind Daryl on the bike. He knew that he could trust Daryl to never wreck, or do anything that would hurt him. Having that cool of a best friend was really awesome. The bike wasn’t like a Power Wheels--it really did go fast! The little motor looked like it took actual gasoline, and Rick thought being on the bike made him a lot cooler than he probably was.

Maybe he’d be a motorcycle cop when he grew up, instead of a sheriff. 

“Careful on the turns.” 

The Old Greene Place was located behind the city proper, near some overgrown lots. The house itself had probably once been a mansion, but now was run-down and decrepit-looking. Daryl, Glenn, and Carol stashed their bikes, and the four of them stood looking at the rusted, metal gate with the stylized “G’ written on both halves. 

The moon went behind the clouds, and Rick was pretty sure that he heard a coyote howl in the distance. 

“You want me to start filming?” Carol’s voice was a little breathy with nerves, but she held the camera steadily enough. 

“Yeah, I guess. Come on. We gonna do this, or what?” Daryl pushed open the gate, and Glenn about fainted when the loud _**SCREEEEEEEEECCCCHHHHH**_ of the rusty metal sang out that they were coming in. So much for being stealthy. Daryl’s gaze darted nervously around, but he bravely went on ahead.

Rick noticed that Daryl was holding his toy crossbow, holding it level and at the ready. Rick immediately took a step forward so that he was shoulder to shoulder with Daryl and readied his fake Colt, making sure that the pop bullets were in it. He didn’t think he could ever really shoot someone, unless they were a bad guy, but it made him feel better somehow to have it in his hand. “Ready?” Rick asked, and Daryl loaded a foam bolt in his crossbow and nodded. 

Glenn took a deep breath. “Good luck, dumb-butts,” he said, then took off at a sprint along the perimeter of the gates on his way to the back door. 

Carol pushed the button on the video camera and hid in a bush out front, rustling the branches aside so she could have a clear shot at the front door. Daryl slinked around for a few seconds, his feet light on the ground and his skinny little arms holding the crossbow at the ready, then nodded an all-clear at Rick, who jumped up and ran for the front door, his Colt pointed at the ground like he’d seen his grandfather carry his _real_ gun before. Daryl checked the widow’s walk and then planted his back against one of the porch columns so he could be a proper lookout while Rick tiptoed up to the door. 

A loud banging came from around the house--Glenn’s decoy door-knocking--and Rick counted to ten and then tried the doorknob. It opened with a creaking noise that made Daryl and Rick both cringe, but the hallway inside was dark and seemed relatively ghost-free, so Rick rushed inside and looked around frantically for something to grab that would prove he’d been inside the house. 

The hallway was empty, though--at least of things that were suitable to steal. There was an end table and a big vase with dried flowers in it, and there wasn’t any way Rick was going to go running through town carrying a giant vase. Eugene would definitely notice _that_. But off to the right was a little sitting room and there were some knick-knacks on a shelf on the opposite wall, so Rick holstered his Colt and crept into the dark room. 

“Excuse me.”

Rick shrieked and jumped so high up into the air that his hat fell off. He turned, crashed into some kind of umbrella stand. It fell over with a crash that Rick hardly noticed. He was too busy staring at the ghost in front of him.

“I-I-I’m not afraid of ghosts!” Rick said, biting his lip. 

The ghost’s lips twitched behind a huge, white beard. 

“I am. Terrified, actually. Darn things always boo-ing and leaving ectoplasm everywhere.” 

Rick’s heartbeat receded enough that he began to realize that... that was no ghost. Ghosts didn’t talk. He was pretty sure they didn’t smell faintly of peppermint, either. And if that wasn’t a ghost, then they had trespassed on this guy’s property. Had barged into his house. 

Oh double-crap. We were in deep, deep trouble. 

The former ghost held out his hand. “Hello. I am Hershel Greene. I would welcome you to my home, but you seem to have welcomed yourself already.” He smiled kindly, but Rick still gulped. “Now, are you here alone?” 

“Yeah.” 

No _way_ was he gonna rat out Daryl and his other friends. 

‘No! He ain’t!” Daryl stood in the still-open doorway, Glenn and Carol were on either side of him, both of them peeking around the corner of the door. Daryl didn’t have his crossbow in his hands, but Rick could see it peeking over the boy’s shoulder, strapped on to his back with a little leather cord. It made him feel safer. 

Mr. Greene raised his hand, gesturing for all of them to come inside. “You best come on in. I don’t get much young company much anymore, but I think that I can manage some trick-or-treat candy for you guys.” 

Rick frantically shook his head no to his friends, trying to make them run with only the power of his mind. Daryl took a long look around at the decrepit, dusty furniture. When Carol saw that Daryl’s shoulders relaxed, she whistled a little under her breath, and Glenn immediately relaxed too, stepping in and through the door. 

Daryl had the best instincts of all of them. He didn’t trust many adults, except for maybe Mrs. Applebaum, their teacher, and sometimes Rick’s parents if they weren’t being too annoying, so if he gave it the all-clear, then it probably was fine. 

Mr. Greene, for his part, waited patiently for them to make up their minds. “You are welcome to leave at any time. In fact, how about we have our beverages on the front porch.” He looked at Rick. “I’m sure your story is going to be quite entertaining.”

The four kids scampered out onto the porch, and Glenn made to run off but Daryl grabbed him by the back of the shirt and held him still. “Hey!” Glenn squeaked. “We gotta get out of here before he axe-murders us!”

“Nah, he ain’t gonna,” Daryl replied. “He’s gonna get us candy.”

“Poisoned candy,” Glenn whispered, and Daryl rolled his eyes and let go of Glenn’s costume. 

“Run on back to Eugene then, if you’re too yellow-bellied to stay,” Daryl said, crossing his arms. “More candy for us.”

Glenn frowned and looked longingly back out at the street, then sighed super heavily and nodded. “Fine. But if he comes back out here with an axe, you guys are on your own.”

“All my axes are in the barn,” Mr. Greene said from behind them, and it didn’t escape Rick’s notice that Daryl was the only one of them who didn’t jump six feet in the air at the sound of the old man’s voice. Granted, he _did_ jump, but Rick figures it was only three feet, max. 

Daryl was such a badass. 

Anyway, Mr. Greene was carrying a tray with five cans of ginger ale and a huge mound of Twix bars. _Full-size_ Twix bars. And there didn’t seem to be an axe or any other dangerous farm implement hanging from the old man’s belt, so Rick screwed up his courage and stepped toward Mr. Greene. 

“These for us?” he asked, remembering his manners just in time to not snatch a candy bar from the pile. 

“Yes,” Mr. Greene said, sitting the tray on the porch railing. “You can have all of the candy in exchange for telling me why you broke into my house.”

The kids all exchanged glances, then Carol gave Rick a little shove toward Mr. Greene. Fine, Rick thought. He’d be the leader. He looked at Mr. Greene, then down at the toes of his own Lil’ Sheriff boots. “Phillip said if I didn’t sneak in an’ bring him a souvenir from your house that I was a no-good scaredy-cat an’ so we were just gonna… take somethin’ small and leave. Real quick.”

Old Man Greene nodded and held a Twix bar out to Rick, then seemed to think better of it and pulled it back. “You shouldn’t turn to a life of crime just because some other boy called you a scaredy-cat, son.”

Daryl stepped forward so he was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Rick. “It was a _triple-dog dare_ though. Sir.”

Mr. Greene chuckled at that. “Oh, was it now? Well, why didn’t you say so?” He held the candy bar out to Rick again, and Rick took it and then snatched up a can of ginger ale too for good measure. 

“I suppose,” Mr. Greene said after the other kids had all taken their full-size-OMG Twix bars and ginger ale, “that I can’t send you away empty-handed. So here. Have some souvenirs.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a handful of… watches? 

He handed one to each of the kids. Carol got a delicate one with a leather strap. Rick got a big bulky silver one. Glenn got a pocketwatch. And Daryl got a big steel Zippo lighter with a clock on the side of it. 

“What’re these for?” Rick asked, and Old Man Greene smiled at him.

“They’re to remind you to make the most of your time,” Mr. Greene said, then winked at them and stood up. “You’d best be going now. Take the rest of the candy and divide it amongst you. And come by and see me some _time_ ,” he said, then walked back into his house, chuckling to himself at his own joke. 

Daryl grabbed the rest of the Twix bars and one of the ginger ale cans and shoved it all in his pockets. “‘S go,” he muttered. “‘Fore we get in trouble.” 

As the four of them jogged back down the path to get their bicycles (and badass motorcycle), Glenn asked, “So what do we tell everybody?”

“That he was real nice and gave us candy and soda?” Rick suggested, and Carol rolled her eyes so hard that he thought they might fall out of her head. 

“That’s not much of a story,” she said, reaching up to adjust her Cookie Monster hood. “And I turned off the camera before the end so nobody would believe it anyway.”

Daryl swung his leg over his motorcycle and motioned for Rick to climb on the back again. “We’ll just tell ‘em that he turned into a bat an’ flew away. An’ then we stole his watches.”

Rick thought about this for a moment. “That sounds like a good story,” he said, nodding decisively. “We’ll say that.”

Daryl flashed him a grin and then started up the motorcycle. Rick pulled the rest of his own Twix bar out of his pocket and munched on it as they sped down the street at almost _eight_ miles an hour this time, watching the full moon and thinking about vampires and zombies and werewolves and how awesome it was to have friends like these.


End file.
